You grew up in the Northeast region, surrounded by reggae and calypso tunes that you listened to on the radio. When did you decide to make music your profession?
I had a nomadic childhood, with a mother who dressed and made up cabaret artists, which led us to move often. I listened to traditional music in the street, funk and hip-hop sounds on the radio like a true carioca. At 14, I secretly auditioned for a salsa group and we scoured the dances of Brazil, which allowed me to train on the job and confirm that music would be my path. In 2002, I performed in Paris in a carnival troupe and the artistic vitality of this city, its way of life immediately seduced me… That’s what encouraged me to come back at 26 with my energy, my backpack and… 200 euros in my pocket.
The beginnings were not easy: I sang in the corridors of the metro, on café terraces… and was paid by the hat. It was not easy to open up in front of people but hey, these are necessary steps to build yourself, to discover yourself in a way…
A few years later, you met Cameroonian bassist Pierre Bika Bika in a bar in Saint-Ouen, who encouraged you to make an album…
Yes, and that was a turning point. He opened the paths of Africa to me, encouraging me to mix influences, learn the guitar… With the producer Victor Vagh and other musicians, we worked on a Brazilian music project by mixing pop, samba, reggae, forro, bossa and hip-hop… while crisscrossing the scenes of the Paris region. In 2011, we won the musical springboard “Reservoir generation”, which allows us to launch our album ” Boss Muffin » which has met with some success. I tried to infuse this opus with a taste for travel, lightness, a certain joy of living even if this world is distressing and imperfect. To remind us that we all have beautiful things inside ourselves to share, unexplored personal resources, dreams to conquer…
Since then, I have had the chance to tour with this wonderful team in around forty countries, to do thousands of concerts, to many festivals… I have also met some great people like the rapper Gaël Faye, the Senegalese singer Head or the drummer Tony Allen with whom I recorded my second album ” My World »which is a tribute to my mixed South American roots. A mix and cultural vitality that I found in Montreuil, where I settled five years ago.
The French public has an enormous curiosity for cultures from elsewhere, for sunny, incandescent melodies that make you want to dance or let go… This fluid and direct contact with the spectators has always been precious to me and has helped me a lot in the production of the CDs that followed.
In 2019, Jair Bolsonaro took power, which caused you a shock and a darker album, echoing the situation in Brazil. Do you think that the artist must necessarily get involved?
I spent 26 years of my life in a country that I love, which managed to emerge from military dictatorship (Editor’s note: in 1985 after 20 years of political repression) but which remains plagued by corruption, inequality, racism, homophobia… I come from a family of immigrants from the Northeast, victims of prejudice and discrimination. It is part of my life and I had a visceral need to talk about what is wrong, to warn as many people as possible in France or elsewhere of the dangers of populist speeches by people who claim to speak to the people but reduce their rights once in power. Bolsonaro has tightened regulations on abortion in cases of rape, cut a large part of the subsidies for culture or associations that raise awareness among young people, for example, of the dangers of drugs or violence…
Afterwards, not all artists are obliged to engage politically, everyone must express themselves in their own way. In my case, I wanted to be able to look at myself in the mirror and bear witness. Our work, it seems to me, is more like that of the painter, who describes the world so that future generations can understand it better.
You shared your teenage memories in your latest opus and you are resuming your marathon tours with the Olympia in your sights…
I wanted to pay tribute to my mother, to the women who accompanied my youth, to their capacity for resilience. After the release of my last album “Giga”, we did about forty dates and about sixty concerts await us throughout France. I will perform in soundsystem mode in a few days at the Festival Solipop in Aubervilliers, a city that I love for its cosmopolitanism. I like the energy, the desire to exist that emerges from working-class neighborhoods and that is less found elsewhere. The public of Seine-Saint-Denis, which I met by participating in the Fête de la Ville de Montreuil is very warm. I hope to find this welcome again on March 12, 2025 at theOlympiawhich will be the highlight of my tour. But hey, I’m optimistic, for the moment, there’s really good dancing in front of the stages!
Seine-Saint-Denis Solipop Popular Relief Festival Saturday, September 28 at 2 p.m. at Point Fort -174 avenue Jean-Jaurès in Aubervilliers. Guest artists: Flavia Coelho Soudsystem, Tiwony, Mandyspie, Bab El West, Victor Mechanick, Bob Marlich…
All profits will be reserved for solidarity in Palestine.
Photo credit: Li Rodagil
